Reviewing what we now know about actual synagogues in the land of Israel and their public role in Jewish life and culture, Jordan J. Ryan shows that Gospel narratives placed in synagogues accurately reflect the ancient synagogue setting. He argues for the historical plausibility of the setting of these narratives and suggests that synagogue research must be a starting point for their interpretation. He further argues that Jesus’s efforts at the restoration of Israel were intentionally aimed at the synagogue as an institution of public and political life.

Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., and Daniel A. Keating introduce readers to one the key thinkers of the fourth century and the chief architect of Christian doctrine: Athanasius. The authors carefully illuminate Athanasius’s crucial text Against the Arians, unfolding the Trinitarian and incarnation framework of Athanasius’s paramount concern (soteriology), and providing, in the second part, a robust map of the reception and influence of Athanasius’s thought—from its immediate impact on the late fourth and fifth centuries (in the Cappadocians and Cyril) to its significance in the Eastern and Western traditions and its reception in contemporary thought.